Improvisation All Part of Master Plan in Bowman’s Case : Figure skating: Former national champion takes light approach to his Goodwill Games performance.

Christopher Bowman couldn’t resist.

Faced with a choice of playing it straight or improvising, the 1989 national figure-skating champion made like Robin Williams.

Wednesday, one day before Bowman would make his Goodwill Games debut, an unsuspecting reporter asked him which free-skating routine he planned to use.

Planned to use?

We all know what happened the last time Bowman planned such an exercise.

If not, go back to March 11 in Halifax, Nova Scotia, site of the world championships:

Bowman, 23, who grew up in Van Nuys, knew he needed to score well in free skating. He was sixth in the compulsory figures and fourth in the original program. Only a spectacular effort in the long program would move him into medal contention.

Halfway through his final event, he decided that the routine that he, his coach, his choreographer and a few other advisers had worked on for months wasn’t going well enough.

It needed more pizazz, more difficulty. So, after considering his options for a few milliseconds, Bowman did what any true showman would do.

He made the rest of it up as he went along.

And lo and behold, he got his medal--a bronze. But in the process, he almost lost his coach.

Frank Carroll, Bowman’s coach, had seen enough. Tiffany Chin and Linda Fratianne, other Carroll proteges, had never been so unpredictable.

“If I am going to remain Christopher’s friend, I cannot be his coach,” Carroll said. After 18 tumultuous years, they would be splitting up.

Bowman, Carroll believed, didn’t take skating seriously. He was talented, but not dedicated. But they did not split up. At least not yet. Carroll accompanied Bowman to the Tacoma Dome this week, although their relationship appeared to be on thin ice.

Carroll declined interview requests this week and Wednesday told a spokesman he had “nothing positive to say.”

Which brings us back to Bowman’s intentions about his free-skating program.

His routine will be the same one he never completed at the world championships.

“I intend to do it in its original form this time,” Bowman deadpanned. “People told me they would be real interested in seeing this program done again. They wanted to see the unedited version.”

So they will. Maybe.

Bowman will compete seventh among the eight men’s skaters. He follows Canada’s Kurt Browning, the current world champion.

“It’s an excellent draw because I get to see how they skate before me and then I can decide whether I can change my program or not,” Bowman quipped.

Typical Bowman. Always the performer.

As a child, Bowman appeared in more than 200 television commercials and had bit parts in “Little House on the Prairie,” and “Archie Bunker’s Place.”

He juggled acting, schoolwork and skating until he was 18. Then he chose to concentrate on skating, and he says he will do so through the 1992 Olympics.

Carroll has been with him since Bowman, at age 5, took lessons at Van Nuys Iceland. They clashed over the Goodwill (a misnomer in this case) Games before they ever arrived in Tacoma.

“(Carroll) was very reluctant about coming to this event because he felt that if you’re not totally prepared then you shouldn’t be going,” said Bowman, who was eager to compete but trained for only two weeks.

“The Goodwill Games is something that is a very elite event.

“It’s not like a national championship or a world championship where everything is on the line.”